Why do we even have losses? Wouldn't simple Wins be sufficient? It has never made sense to me. So I came in last, I got big fat zero added to my "wins" or points for the week. If two of us tie, we could get .5 added to the point total for the week. The losses seems useless. Care to explain?

The losses used to matter when we would have ties. Ties were frequent, and so it was much easier to recognize that two people went, say, 3-5-1, rather than listing two people as "3" leaving a missing number out. And so if two people had the same number of wins, the one with the best winning percentage (least losses) came out ahead. The fractional scoring means we rarely have ties (haven't, actually, since we started fractional scoring), so it doesn't really matter. We've kept it up because of tradition, because it is simple to understand, because it still matches a record (you're competing against everybody: yes, the wins are what really matters, but registering it in terms of wins and losses makes it a little clearer, and since it's the language usually used in sports, for some of us it's easier to understand--I find it easier to think in terms like "I can go 5-3 this week" than "I can get a 5 this week").

It actually continues to be helpful in double-checking the standings. Everybody's wins and losses (and ties, should they occur) add up to the same number, so sometimes we can find an error because the numbers don't add up (and sometimes the error is in number of wins, which is relevant).